


The Prodigal Son

by honsandrebels



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honsandrebels/pseuds/honsandrebels
Summary: Cole Mackenzie returns to Avonlea on the eve of Anne and Gilbert’s wedding.





	The Prodigal Son

**The Prodigal Son**

 

_Cole Mackenzie returns to Avonlea on the eve of Anne and Gilbert’s wedding._

 

It was midday when the prodigal son returned to Avonlea.

Cole Mackenzie, sculptor, portraitist, provocateur and founding member of what John Ruskin had dubbed the Nova Scotian Brotherhood, had been seen emerging from a train at Charlottetown late Thursday evening, yet by next morning, kitchens and breakfast tables in Avonlea were already abuzz with word of his arrival. In fact, so brisk was the speed of gossip in Avonlea, that a small contingent of Avonlea art fans (and general busybodies) could be found waiting for him at the coach stop. The furore that met Cole was to be expected. After all, it wasn’t every day that a famous painter (or infamous, according Mrs Harmon and the rest of the ladies of the Progressive Mothers Circle) returned to his hometown after more than a decade’s absence.

Since his sudden disappearance from Avonlea in the year 1878, Cole had fulfilled all the promise that the meager few in Avonlea who believed in him did then, and then more. His strange, fey, _scandalous_ portraits of young men and abstract landscapes were considered deeply exciting by art patrons, the _Société des Artistes Français_ and the beauty seeking alike. However, they certainly didn’t look like anything Avonlea had ever seen before (“ _But is it art?”,_ Mr Penhallow, the Avonlea Chronicle’s self-installed Arts critic intoned in his somewhat nonplussed review of Mackenzie’s latest exhibition: a celebration of the male nude form in the new impressionist form). Yes, Cole Mackenzie had achieved a degree of renown far beyond Avonlea’s imaginings, or indeed, his own. His artistic success had lifted Avonlea from its relative obscurity, while the success of Anne’s book—just lately published last Christmas and still receiving very kind reviews—had crystallised the little town in public imagination far beyond the reaches of the Island.

As of yet Avonlea did not quite know how to deal with its new brush with fame. Some revelled in it (Mrs Lynde, Mrs Barry), but others found it ill-fitting (Mrs Pye, Mr Andrews). Nevertheless, a local boy done good was never something to sniff about, and the fact he had come home was cause for celebration, even for the most prudish of the town’s citizens.

Those who remembered Cole Mackenzie would be able see traces of the woebegone figure he was as a lad in the man before them. Stepping out of the coach, Cole appeared consisting mostly of arms and legs. To the Avonlea mothers in attendance, Mackenzie was a little too thin, and a little too tall, to be considered truly handsome. Moreover, he had a slight stoop, developed from a failed effort in childhood and early youth to be smaller and inconspicuous. But overall, the intervening years had been kind to Cole Mackenzie. Today in the Friday sun, he was now in a linen suit the colour of cream, and a straw hat, both so finely made that they could only be noted by Mrs Gillis as _foreign,_ or as Mrs Barry—who had an eye for such things—as  _French_. His hair was cut very short and he wore a very thin, crimson ribbon around his neck, which appeared to Mr Penhallow (as he would describe to Avonlea Chronicle readers) a clear nod to _costume à la victim,_ the macabre Parisian fashion earlier in the century that reminded one of the guillotine. A very small pair of very small, round glasses, the lens—a startling shade of bottle green—perched delicately on his nose, completed the ensemble.

The overall effect, it must be said, was decidedly Bohemian, and to the crowd that met Cole, both parts perplexing and breathtaking. Nevertheless, this queer vision did not silence the denizens of Avonlea for too long, for as soon as Cole took his final step from the coach, he was submerged with requests for autographs and invitations for him to come to tea.

Never one to fade into a crowd, Rachel Lynde was on a mission. In her most determined form, she pushed through the melee, bellowing loudly: “Well, well Cole Mackenzie, as I live and breathe. What a strapping young man you have become. How was the train from Charlottetown?” 

Cole had peered down at Mrs Lynde and slowly removed his spectacles. Without the green hue of his glasses, Mrs Lynde appeared as Cole had best remembered her, robust and plump as a brown hen. Her hair might be more silver than brown these ten years hence, but Cole could see that her dark eyes were sparkling with life yet. Cole was feeling mischievous. He decided to tease Mrs Lynde by clasping her on the shoulders with both hands and stooping to enthusiastically kiss her in the French fashion, on both cheeks. Mrs Lynde, who hadn’t blushed so since Mr Lynde had called her for the first time at seventeen, his darling pet, fairly harumphed at his forwardness. “Well, I never, Cole Mackenzie” she tittered.

Cole laughed, dispelling any memory of the shy, awkward boy of Mrs Lynde’s memories.

Coyly and extravagantly, Cole replied, “Mrs Lynde, what an divine pleasure to see you. Oh yes, now I am truly in Avonlea. You, Mrs Lynde, have a face one could—in a million years—could never forget. Oh, but the train was a tremendous laugh, so many interesting faces, one longs to paint them.” It was a bit much, Cole thought. But Cole was performing in his favourite impression, what Jonathan had once described, “a perfect git of an _artiste_ ”, the dilettantes that seemed to perpetually find him, it had been a long journey, and he was determined to enjoy himself. Nevertheless, he winked at Mrs Lynde, rather spoiling the joke. 

Mrs Lynde was rather charmed, but she would not give Cole Mackenzie the pleasure of flirting with him, when she knew he was only doing it to tease. So she went right to the heart of why she had approached him. With officious voice, she told him of her mission:

“I suppose you’re raring to go and see Anne, but all the bridal party arrived all at once last night, and she couldn’t leave to pick you up herself, though she’s fairly dying to see you. So she sent me to bring you to Green Gables in her stead.”

Cole grinned at this. “Well we shouldn't keep Anne-girl waiting.” Cole bowed very low. “My Lady” he said, offering his arm to Mrs Lynde, which she took with much self-satisfaction, pushing past Mrs Pye and Mrs Boulter as she led him to the buggy.

“A little bit of fame and milling about with those heathens from Europe, and the boy thinks he’s the Prince of Wales. Ten years ago, he was poor as church mouse and my Josie wouldn’t even deign look at him” sniffed Mrs Pye as she watched him drive off with Mrs Lynde.

 

* * *

 

Feeling adventurous, Cole had offered to steer the buggy. Soon, for the first time since he was fourteen, he was driving on an Avonlea road. However, as picturesque as they seemed in the distance, the roads were red and dusty that he wondered at the sensibility of wearing his third best whites.

Mrs Lynde, now relieved of the duty of driving, chattered away happily and in doing so provided Cole with the main gist of the current Avonlea gossip, which she delivered with her usual abrasive efficiency:

“Well as you know Diana Barry – I mean, Diana Wright – is expecting again, Frances Clark, the teacher is Episcopalian would you believe, Mrs Fisher has moved back to her folks because—ever since she started having lumbago—she’s decided to vote conservative but Mr Fisher says he won’t condone a conservative living in his house, so she’s left him to his own devices, and he’s far gone a skeleton since he’s never had to make a meal in his life before, and it’s a real sad, you never saw a more stubborn couple, though they’re in a right mood if either gets word that the other’s been in the merest vicinity of the opposite sex. Moody Spurgeon is courting the youngest Gillis girl, the spitting image of her sister. She, like Ruby—rest in peace the poor thing—is too pretty to be a Reverend’s wife, I daresay. As I always say, it isn’t seemly to have a handsome reverend, and likewise it’s not quite right for a reverend to have such a beautiful wife. Though Anne’s friend, Philippa is mighty handsome despite being a reverend’s wife, and seems to do her husband proud, so I think the Lord makes do.”

It was a comfort to hear Mrs Lynde prattle so. Like putting on a pair of old, comfortable socks, Cole thought.

Mrs Lynde also spoke of Anne and Gilbert, and Cole could hear the frisson of excitement in her voice when she spoke of the wedding. Anne and Gilbert were of course, the real and only reasons why Cole Mackenzie was in Avonlea in the first place.

Apart from Anne, Cole felt no palpable connection with the town of Avonlea anymore. He didn’t even have any family in the town, not for a long time at any rate. Once they could afford it—or rather, he could afford it—his family moved to Ontario, where his mother had found to her surprise that she took very well to good living, and had her own cook and a maid besides. Thanks to a small investment from Cole, his brothers had gone West to seek their fortunes in gold, and all but two of his sisters were happily married with a dozen children—whose names he could never remember—between them. Much as it gave him pleasure to assist his mother and siblings, they—who had never truly understood him, much less his art—had never quite felt like family. Anne and Josephine, Rollings, Monsieur Colarossi, Jonathan and the rest of the Nova Scotian Brotherhood were his true kin. And now that Josephine had been buried in the Barry plot alongside her beloved Gertrude these four summers since, Anne and Diana were Cole’s final links to Avonlea, the last strings to a (mostly) unhappy childhood that Cole had tried hard—sometimes very hard—to forget.

But not Anne. Cole could never forget Anne, who was to him, as she was then, the embodiment of the best and sweetest of women. Cole often wondered that life had an inexpressibly wicked sense of humour. If he had been a man of conventional passions, he could have in all probability loved Anne as fully as man could love a woman. Loved her as Romeo to Juliet, or as Dante to Beatrice. But Cole had known early, even before he could understand desire in that way, that he was different. Billy Andrews and Mr Philips had called him broken, a freak. Jo had said he was special. Jonathan had described him once as a man often touched by genius, and sometimes by devilry. Most times, Cole felt that he was all of these things, all at once.

At any rate, even if he wasn’t a man who preferred the company of other men, if he was really in love with Anne in that way, these weeks’ events would have been an unbearable experience. Cole had only recently been initiated in the torments of unrequited love, but he already knew it was nothing to sniff at. And it really would be unrequited when it came to Anne. For as he told Anne once, a very long time ago, there was a sense of rightness, of inevitability in this weekend’s events.

For Cole knew—and as he had known when they were hardly more than children themselves—there would never be anyone for Anne than Gilbert Blythe, or Gilbert for Anne. Anne may have been the very last person in the world to realize this (she probably was.) Cole thought of the many of times Anne had rebuffed his hints about herself and Gilbert. But eventually even she had come to understand it, and to believe it too. It felt as implacable and inevitable as anything Cole had ever understood. Anne and Gilbert, two orphans, had been forged in the same fire: they were made for each other. Therefore, as it was—and as it should be—Cole’s love for Anne would remain powerfully but unchangeably that of a brother to a sister, of a kindred spirit, a platonic soul mate.

As if she could read his thoughts, Mrs Lynde asked Cole if he had a sweetheart in Ontario, and if he might bring her to Avonlea. So entrenched in the Canadian _demi-monde_ , Cole had not of recent memory conversed with someone who assumed that he might be a man to have a sweetheart—or at least a _girl_ sweetheart.

Cole recalled a moment two weeks ago. It was a Sunday afternoon at the Galleries. Cole had looked up from his sketch of the lady with a little dog at the park. Jonathan was at his side, lying on the grass reading _The_ _Pickwick Papers_. He was silently laughing to himself, his eyes scanning the page eagerly. One of the things that Cole liked best about Jonathan was how well he enjoyed things. How easy and lovely a sense of humour Jonathan had. And as if he could sense Cole watching him, Jonathan looked up, grinned and winked at Cole in such a way that made Cole catch his breath.

But Cole was not sure that Mrs Lynde would understand a sweetheart in the form of a Jonathan, however indecently handsome a creature Jonathan was.

So instead, Cole said in that “artiste git” voice, “No dear Mrs Lynde, I have had the distinct misfortune of having no lady love to share this lowly artist life. But if you, Mrs Lynde, could bear the Ontario summer, I will be your eternal acolyte.”

Mrs Lynde tsked in response, but he could see the humour in her eyes and the tinge of pink on her cheek, and surmised that she was pleased that she could regale the distinct privilege of flirting with Cole Mackenzie to the rest of the Avonlea biddies later.

As the buggy turned the corner, the natural beauty of where Cole and Mrs Lynde had been driving through had caught Cole’s eye, and soon he could glimpse the cliff foreshore. It was here, ten years ago, where his life had reached its lowest ebb and oblivion had seemed his only option. He shivered in remembrance. Cole had never felt so low in his life as he did that afternoon when he found his sculptures and the Storybook Club destroyed and when, by accident, he had burned Billy Andrews’ ear. Here on this cliff, the inexorable vastness of his small, unbearable life mocked him and he had longed for relief.

And yet something—no someone—had held him back.

At that moment—and he still remembered it well—when the distance between living and dying was a few square feet of cliff, a slip of a girl with too short hair, clung to him and told him he was precious and that he was loved. She had told him it was not he who had to meet up to the world, but the world that needed to meet up to him. He remember the shame and relief of that moment, and the way Anne held on to him and cried and made him feel a tiny but simmering sense of hope.

It would take years of living with Josephine before he began to truly believe Anne’s words. Now it was the motto that would define his life. _Carpe Diem!_ , he would say to the young men and women who reminded him of his younger self. He was an acolyte to altar of beauty, sensuality and pleasure. He was an artist.

Not that his life was perfect by any means. Secrecy and fear were his constant companions. His life would never be truly honest to the outside world. The coolness of some men and women’s glances as he walked the streets of Ontario, often with his friends, could still make his blood run cold. The threat of violence did not disappear with schoolyard sadists as Billy Andrews. The Cole of the present was fated to meet new Billy Andrews and Mr Phillips at every turn, but at least now he was better equipped to face them.

At any rate, Cole tried hard not to think of the past. It was sweeter to remember what he had, rather than what he hadn’t. Even in his wildest dreams as a boy Cole couldn’t have imagined the things he had seen, the things he had given or received, the pleasures he had experienced, or the art he had been allowed to create in the past ten years. It was a miracle, and a miracle that he knew—in some part—lay in the hands of the young woman he was driving towards today.

 

* * *

 

 

By now, the famous Green Gables could be seen in view, sparkling like a newly minted penny in the afternoon sun. As the buggy crept closer to the gate, the front door of the house burst forth and a wisp of blue and white and red hair came bounding down the hill to meet it. Cole clicked the reins to halt, jumping down just in time for a flurry of cotton and puffed sleeves to clasp his neck. “Cole!” the voice muffled voice said, catching in a sob.

Cole and Anne hugged each other for such a long time that Mrs Lynde discreetly left the two to see what Marilla was up to. The moment seemed pregnant with emotion. Cole could feel Anne crying quietly in his shoulder, but soon the sobs turned to joyful hiccups. As she released him, he could see that she was laughing. She wiped her eyes. 

“Oh dear” Anne hiccupped again. “What a silly, sentimental woman I’ve become. Who knew that one’s own wedding could make you into a veritable teapot. This has been the fifth time I’ve wept today. But you, dear boy,” And with this, she reached up to tweak his ear. “You have made me cry the hardest.” Cole grinned and bent to give Anne a quick kiss on her cheek in reply. Anne sighed, “Well, let me have a look at you.”

Anne stepped back to admire Cole, allowing him to assess her in turn. The Anne of ten years ago remained vividly present in the young woman before him. Instead of the pre-naturally skinny creature of his youth, the Anne of twenty-three was more willowy and womanly in figure, though the face was just as striking as before, with its slightly overlarge features, wide mouth and mesmerizing eyes. It was a face that he knew very well and had painted many times before. It was a face that was immortalized in his final art school exhibition, the exhibition that would launch his career and send him to Paris. His paintings of Anne as _Jeanne D’arc—_ her hair in the fashion that he had known her best, shorn like a boy’s—were among his most admired works in the realist, historical style, and though by now he had moved to more _avante garde_ pastures, he remained unspeakably fond of his _Anne_ _Period_ , as he liked to call it.

Anne clapped her hands. “Oh Cole, you’re looking splendid.” Cole bowed at her compliment, “And, dear Anne, you are positively luminous.”

“But, how are you?” asked Cole, though he could see from Anne’s bright eyes that his friend was radiant.

“Oh Cole, you can’t imagine. I feel like I’m in a dream.”

“Clearly dreamland suits you. Anne, it needs to be said again, you’re incandescent.”

Anne glowed in reply. “Well, I can’t verify how I look Cole. But I feel it. Oh, Cole, I’m so happy, so happy it’s almost terrifying. Remember the books we read, of Tennyson and Shelley? Of the Brownings? I thought I perfectly understood what they wrote about, but now I see it was like looking at a painting with a spyglass, or at the sun through a gap in a curtain. I didn’t, I couldn’t know what truly love was, and now it’s almost too much.”

Cole laughed. “If that’s so Anne, you’ve done a pretty convincing impression of someone who knew about love until now. And to be clear dear, you’re speaking to one of the uninitiated, the shrinking violet behind the curtain, so don’t be too unbearable about it.”

Anne poked him in mock exasperation. “Oh Cole, don’t be silly, one only has to look at a single painting of yours to know that you know something singularly real and profound about love too. And also, Cole” and with this, she looked up a little shyly, “I really was hoping that Jonathan would come with you as I suggested. I’m fairly longing to meet him. You did write about him so vividly in your letters. He sounded like such a kindred spirit.”

Cole’s mood had dimmed somewhat at Anne’s words. He had almost forgotten that he and Jonathan were not on good terms anymore, perhaps no longer even friends. At least, it seemed that way when they parted two days ago.

The morning Cole had left for Avonlea, Jonathan had found it the appropriate moment to declare that now that he was no longer a starving writer, but an employee of _The Ontario Express_ for more three months, and since they hadn’t come to their senses and fired him as of yet, Jonathan considered himself now a man of (some) means. Perhaps he should get out of Cole’s hair and finally look for a place of his own? If Cole wanted him to. 

Cole had been hurt by Jonathan’s announcement. Cole had come to love Jonathan living with him, to a degree that surprised Cole, knowing that he initially let Jonathan—a stranger then—lease his spare room as a favour to an old art school friend who happened to be Jonathan’s brother.

But from the moment that Jonathan moved in, Cole sensed that he was a kindred sprit. Even from the very beginning, Jonathan had never blinked an eye when strange men joined them at breakfast, or at the male models that often frequented Cole's studio. Without Cole realising it, he had become Cole’s favourite person to attend the theatre with, to the park, to dinner. Jonathan laughed the loudest at Cole’s nonsense and unlike everyone—except perhaps Anne—Cole never had to explain his jokes to him. Jonathan openly wept at symphonic concerts in such a way that Cole had never seen in another man. In effect, barring Anne, Jonathan had become his best friend.

But of recent months, Jonathan had not wanted to have dinner when Cole had company, had not wanted to go to the theatre or the bookshop with Cole, saying that he had to work late. Cole had come to realize that he had missed Jonathan, a ludicrous notion since Jonathan slept in the next room. But nevertheless, Cole had felt loneliness such that he had not felt since Aunt Jo had died. It became unbearable.

So two Sundays ago, because he couldn’t stand it any longer, Cole had asked Jonathan if he wanted to join him in the park. Jonathan had looked at him for a long time and said gruffly that he would love to.

In the sunshine—the first properly warm day Ontario had experienced since the beginning of spring—they were both lying on a grassy knoll, jackets off and ties loosened. Cole had just finished his sketch of the lady with the little dog to look at Jonathan reading _The Pickwick Papers,_ when Jonathan had looked up himself,  caught his gaze and winked at him.

Jonathan seemingly returned to his book, but after a few moments had glanced back up, catching on that Cole was still looking at him. Jonathan's eyes grew serious and warm, and he stretched one of his beautiful forearms out to Cole. (Cole had longed to ask Jonathan if he could draw his forearms but despite the fact he would not think twice of asking a stranger to sit with him, he had felt shy of drawing Jonathan even from memory. Cole now knew this was because the act of drawing Jonathan would essentially be articulating his incommensurate longing onto paper.) Soon Jonathan’s large, warm hand had reached out to hold Cole’s, and his thumb stroked the callous on Cole’s thumb where the pencil always rubbed.

Cole really stopped breathing then, and Cole wondered what he should say, what he should do next, whether he should do what he wanted to do for weeks and stroke Jonathan’s forearm, whether he should ask Jonathan to join him at Anne’s wedding as Anne suggested, when a branch snapped behind him, and a man and a woman walked by them. And even though Cole knew rationally that neither of the man or woman probably noticed the intimate way he and Jonathan were holding hands, Cole had pulled away roughly, and began to work on the lady with the little dog again, not daring looking at the man who sat beside him, who had held his hand, and had looked at him in the way that made Cole’s insides ache.

Cole could feel Jonathan sitting there silently, not even moving. Then all at once Jonathan jumped up, and while brushing his pants for grass, muttered that he had an article that was due tomorrow morning, and if Cole would accept his apologies. Cole had nodded without looking up and didn’t look up until the sounds of Jonathan’s footsteps could no longer be heard, and only the dim outline of his retreating figure could be seen in the distance.

From that Sunday, Jonathan had been especially cold and silent, and Cole supposed he himself must have appeared aloof too. Cole knew that it was up to him to mention something, to explain, but he was afraid to. Of what—he could not exactly say. Of losing a best friend. Of the chance that he was imagining things, of wanting things so much that his imagination—so profuse—truly was playing tricks on him. Of, what had Anne had said just now? Of being so happy that it was almost terrifying.

So Cole had waited for a better time to speak to Jonathan, and when Jonathan had beaten him to it, the news had an affect on him that was rather akin to being punched in the stomach. Jonathan had asked what Cole thought of Jonathan’s proposal, and Cole pretended to be indifferent and said that he always knew that Jonathan would soon yen for respectability. At any rate, he too, was thinking of packing up and visiting the _Academie_ in Paris this summer too. Perhaps more than visit. Perhaps he would finally capitulate to the pleas of some of his continental friends and move there too. Ontario was hardly the vanguard of the modern art world. After all, he said with what he hoped was a smile (rather than the grimace he felt inside), all good things must come to an end.

To his satisfaction and shame, Jonathan was looking rather miserable when Cole announced this new idea. He rather hoped that Jonathan would protest, get angry, but he simply nodded and said that he agreed that Cole was truly made for better things. Cole had wanted to argue, and to cry, but had only muttered that he needed to head to the station soon if he was to make the Charlottetown train. Jonathan had asked quietly if Cole would write to him to tell him that he arrived safely, and to tell him of Anne’s wedding. He didn’t know Anne, never having the chance to met her, yet he felt he did know Anne, in some strange way. Cole said brusquely that he had some patrons in Halifax to meet, so it’s unlikely that he would have time to write, and well he'd better be off. Take care, old chap, he said. And with that, he closed the door without hearing Jonathan’s answer, and without looking back.

On the train Cole's hands had itched to open the valise, take out a sheaf of paper and write to Jonathan about the ladies and their ridiculous hats on the Charlottetown train, but he remembered their parting words, and stopped himself. Instead he grabbed his book from his pocket, a copy of Tennyson’s poems on loan from Jonathan in happier days, opened to the first lines of _In Memoriam_ and felt like weeping in the carriage.

Anne had lightly rubbed his arm, and he remembered that he was standing on the grounds of Green Gables, with his best friend, on the eve of her wedding. Anne had a serious, sad expression on her face, and Cole felt that she could read, in his face, everything that had happened in the past few days: his fear, his longing, his despair. They didn’t need to exchange words. Like the time he had revealed to her that he was like Aunt Jo, she understood completely. It was a kind of gift she had, his Anne-girl. 

She shook her head, and cried—as if she had just remembered, but he knew it was to spare him— “Oh I’m so glad you’re here, Cole. For Philippa and Priscilla are just now almost in arms on what the bridesmaids’ bouquets should look like, but I know they will listen to you.”

And in a flash, Anne held him by the arm, fairly dragging him up to the house, whereupon he met the joyful cries of Diana, Marilla and the rest of Anne’s kindred spirits.

 

* * *

 

 

The day’s afternoon sun turned into dusk and dusk turned into the purple bloom of a summer’s night when it seemed that all of Avonlea was at Green Gables to celebrate the eve of Gilbert and Anne’s wedding. In a moment of respite from the crowd—because the Reverend Moody Spurgeon had tripped and knocked over the cake Mrs Lynde had lovingly made for the happy couple, and the chaos that ensued seemed even more interesting than even the presence Avonlea’s pre-eminent artist—Cole had found himself standing next to Gilbert Blythe, who was watching the scene unfold. While most of the guests were fixed on the comic-drama of Mrs Lynde and Moody, Gilbert was watching at Anne who, with Marilla, was trying desperately to resolve the situation, comforting Moody and placating Mrs Lynde.

Gilbert had the smile that Cole had seen in class many times in the brief interlude when Gilbert had returned from his travels and Cole was still suffering under Mr Phillip’s wrath. It was the smile Gilbert wore whenever Anne had the chance to read out loud.

As if she could feel his eyes on her, Anne's head lifted and she caught Gilbert’s eye. Her expression of perturbance began to soften and soon she cracked into a smile of her own, her mouth pursing, her shoulders lifting a bit in an effort not to laugh. She shook her head as Gil raised a glass to her, but Cole could see that she was still smiling as she resumed attending to Moody and Mrs Lynde.

Gilbert, spurred out of his reverie, glanced over at Cole. Cole raised his glass at Gilbert and Gilbert raised his glass in return. The difference in Gilbert Blythe today than the Gilbert that Cole had last seen was breathtaking.

The last time Cole last had seen Gilbert had been three years ago, a few weeks before Gilbert had been struck with scarlet fever. When Cole had heard from Diana that Gilbert was at death’s door that spring, Cole wasn’t surprised. A few weeks earlier in Ontario, Cole was attending a science lecture (trying to catch the eye of a handsome medical student who he had first seen at Josephine’s final Summer Soiree), when he had caught sight of the familiar curly head and the comely profile of Gilbert Blythe. When he approached Gilbert after the end of the lecture (the Summer Soiree fellow would have to wait another day), Gilbert seemed pleased to see Cole again, but Cole couldn't help but notice how thin Gilbert looked, how pale and wan, and how his smile never quite seemed to meet his eyes. Gilbert was here for a medical symposium, and had another lecture to attend but would Cole have a drink with him after? Cole agreed, asking Gilbert to pop by his studio and they would walk to a bar together.

It was ten minutes before Blythe was due to arrive when Cole first felt the inchoate sense of dread. Mindlessly, he began to collect all the canvases in the studio that featured a young woman with red hair. He remembered throwing a white canvas over the pile, so that the red haired lady of many faces was hidden. He was still panting from his efforts when he heard the knock at the door. Gilbert, still looking tired but in a more cheerful mood, entered his studio. He remembered Gilbert being very nice and complimentary about Cole’s work, asking articulate questions about Cole’s art in the way that Cole remembered Gilbert would often ask questions in school. He himself had asked Gilbert a question about medical school, when he noticed that Gilbert’s attention was fixed on something else. Something on Cole’s wall. A sinking feeling settled in Cole’s stomach as he moved his eye to the place where Gil was staring, though he needn’t have looked to know what it was. Here, in the space above the fireplace, Cole had made an installation of miniatures of people that he loved: Aunt Josephine, Rollings, Monsieur (his favourite art teacher), Simon (his first lover), and—in his extreme dismay for having overlooked it—the portrait of a young girl with red hair in profile, her eyes in a faraway look, as if she was daydreaming. With extreme reluctance Cole turned to look back at Gilbert, and witnessed Gilbert’s cheek divest itself of colour.

The night was a bit of a blur afterwards (Cole did get very drunk but not with Blythe) but he remembered suggesting to Gil to sit down while Cole would bring him a glass of water. He remembered returning with the glass and encountering Gil, sitting in a gesture that reminded Cole nothing more than Van Gogh’s _Sorrowful Old Man_. Gilbert hunched over, his head in his hands. It was almost physically painful for Cole to look at him. He remembered, in as spry a voice as he could muster, telling Gil that the old chap had been working himself to the bone, he need a holiday, a respite. Cole remembered offering an invitation to join him Montreal next month, at the lake house of a patron, where Cole had been invited to paint.

Gil had looked up then and with a rueful grin, thanked Cole but said he did not think Montreal was in his future just yet. He did not stay much longer, and while Cole thought it would do for Blythe to have a drink, Gil had left before they could depart for the agreed beverage at the bar. “I think the symposium has taken its toll on me, Cole. As Bash would say I’m a total mote. I’ll make it up to you some other time, I promise”, Gilbert had said. And soon he was out the door.

After Gilbert had left, Cole stared at the portrait that so disturbed Blythe for a long time. He wanted to take it down from the wall. He remembered the next time he wrote Anne a letter, he refrained from mentioning Gilbert’s visit.

 

* * *

  

But now it was the eve of Anne and Gilbert’s wedding, and the scent of buttercream from Mrs Lynde’s ill-fated cake suffused the air. Gilbert started to speak again, “I know that you are one of Anne’s best friends, but you’ve also been a good friend to me.”

Cole shrugged “You were the only boy in Avonlea to truly treat me like a friend, as if I was a human being, not a freak of nature”

Gilbert smiled ruefully.

“I suppose you remember the last time we saw each other, when I had visited your studio.”

Cole nodded sympathetically, his mouth pursing in a small frown in remembrance.

Gilbert continued, “It was torture of course, and you were right, I was not taking care of myself. When Anne had first refused me, it had been a blow, but I thought… I believed it might have been because there were so many things that she might want to do… that she needed time to see the world. I remembered Prissy Andrews’ first wedding. And because I had had that chance myself, that chance to see the world so early, it would be unfair, it would be wrong to begrudge her that opportunity. So when she said no the first time, even though we had parted and were not really on speaking terms, I still had hope. But when Roy Gardener came along… it was… it was the first time… it occurred to me that perhaps we might never … well it was a hard time.”

Cole started, a little alarmed. He hadn’t expected Gilbert to describe his feelings with such candour. His hand lifted to touch Gilbert’s arm.

“We don’t have to talk about this now Gil”

“No it feels right to tell you this. And I won’t speak of it too much more. I mean, I’ve spoken of this to Bash and Mary, you needn’t worry on that part that I’ve kept silent. But Bash has always been so firmly of the belief that Anne and I… that things would work out, that at times was painful to speak of it to him.”

Gilbert raised his glass and drained it. He picked up a wine bottle on a nearby side table and refilled his glass and Cole’s own. His expression was more thoughtful than grim. “The worst of it was when your exhibition opened, and other Redmond students, my professors, patients, even mere strangers after finding out I was from Avonlea, would mention your work and describe your paintings of Anne. It was inescapable, unbearable. One day I opened up _The Redmond Gazette_ and there  she was, an etching of one of your portaits, with an article on you and the rumour that Roy Gardener had asked you to paint her. I think that was the moment when the scarlet fever really took a turn for the worst.”

 _The Redmond Gazette_ was hardly the most steadfast of periodicals to the notion of journalistic rigour, but in this case, the rumours were true. Cole remembered the moment when Roy Gardener had commissioned a portrait of Anne, the apotheosis of a fairytale-like (if ultimately, doomed) courtship. Gardener was tall, dark and handsome, but almost too perfect looking to be truly interesting specimen, like a man in a brilliantine ad. And certainly his imagination was wanting. Of course Gardener was considerate and knowledgeable about art the way old money always knew about art, but never in the year that he was part of Anne’s life, did Cole feel that Gardener was a kindred spirit.

Cole remembered Roy and Anne at the exhibition that Gilbert had spoken of. Roy and Anne had looking at a painting by Cole when he had approached the couple, _The Death of Patroclus_. Achilles was embracing Patroclus in a lovers clasp, his face in anguish. Anne had teared up when she saw this painting. Perhaps she was thinking, as he did when he made it, of Aunt Jo and Gertrude. Gardener, on the other hand, had a slight grimace on his face and moving onto the next artwork, had had merely shrugged and said “it’s a bit overwrought for me dear fellow”, patting Cole on the shoulder. Later, when they were saying farewell, Gardener said it was a fine exhibition, but he would rather more pretty women to behold. He said he would put his money where his mouth was, and said he would like Mackenzie to do a special work for him, of the woman he hoped would be his future wife. But with long hair. None this half-boy soldier, French nonsense.

Anne had broken it off with Gardener before Cole had moved from his preliminary sketches of Anne to painting on canvas. He wondered if he should tell Gilbert this.

Gilbert was still speaking. “I had no doubt what that would signify, Gardener commissioning a portrait of Anne from you, even more than the rumours of their engagement. The magnitude of the gesture revealed all and it fell on me that I might lose the thing, the one thing, that was most important to me. That being a doctor, my vocation, everything always had Anne in that vision of what life looked like.”

Cole had felt the conversation taking a sorrowful turn and said gently, “Let’s not revel in the past Gilbert. Not when everything came through in the end.”

Gil nodded and looked at Cole with an expression that reminded Cole again of what Anne had said earlier this afternoon, about being so happy that she was almost frightened by her own happiness. They both looked up to see Anne walking towards them. 

“Well, at least we can hope that Moody’s done his worst, and have faith the wedding tomorrow will be Spurgeon accident-free. At any rate, Mrs Andrews told me a ruined wedding eve cake is a good omen” she said, taking Gilbert’s glass to have a long sip from it.

Gill laughed. “I’m not sure if it was providence that Moody Spurgeon should be allowed near a cake but I’m sure if Mrs Andrews says it’s a good omen, I have every belief in it. But look, Anne, Moody’s mark remains.”

Cole watched as Gilbert lift his hand to remove a fleck of cake and icing from Anne’s brow, his fingers moving down to brush Anne’s cheek faintly. There was something in Anne’s answering blush at Gilbert made Cole feel like he was looking at something unspeakably private and that he should turn away, and so he did. He could see Diana gesturing at him. Cole strode over to speak to her, leaving the couple to their secret dialogue.

 

* * *

 

 

Cole spent the morning of Anne’s wedding in the White Way of Delight collecting flowers for her bouquet. They agreed last night that he would be the one to do it. But when he returned to Green Gables, he saw that Gilbert had sent over a sheaf of lilies of the valley for Anne and decided that he would fashion a wreath for Anne and bouquets for Diana and Philippa instead. He remembered Anne trying hard not to cry as he laid the wreath on her head.

It was a morning of sweetness and sadness, with much that Cole would have liked to imprint on paper and perhaps in paint. He fairly longed to sketch all day. He would have liked to sketch Marilla’s face when Anne came down the stairs, as if her heart would burst. Or of Anne’s face wreathed in flowers that reminded Cole of the magical day—and it was a moment from a fairy tale really—when he and Anne and Diana visited Aunt Jo’s house for the very first time, and he had never seen a place so beautiful, where he had never felt so belonged. He so wished that Jo were here to whisper jokes and wry observations in his ear, as they did at Diana’s wedding, and he felt a fresh pang of loss. Jo would have loved the wedding. She always said that Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe were made for each other.

She would recall, as he did now, of Diana’s tears, and of Anne’s laughter when Anne Cordelia used her veil to wipe her nose. And Cole would describe his and Anne’s visit to Matthew’s grave, where Anne had left half of her bouquet. Cole even felt like weeping when he saw Mrs Lynde’s face, brimming with pride but also wistful. Cole wondered if she was thinking of her own wedding as girl, and how much she missed Mr Lynde.

But most of all he remembered Gilbert’s face, when Anne walked the aisle with Marilla. Bash, as groomsman, was grinning ear to ear, but it was Gilbert’s face that Cole remembered best, a face that seemed so suffused with love that Cole was reminded of last night, and felt like turning away once again. Anne was incandescent throughout. And as all good weddings seem to have, there were many tears, with Mrs Gillis and Mrs Barry competing for the loudest crying.

The wedding reception was raucous and joyful. Bash and Mary’s children zipped through the ladies’ skirts, playing tag with the Wright cousins. Mrs Lynde had three quarters of the Progressive Mothers around her as she regaled stories of Anne’s auspicious arrival at Avonlea and her and Gilbert’s lengthy and hard-won courtship. The youngest Gillis girl—who so reminded Cole of Ruby the year before she became sick, golden and bloomy like a rose—was making sure that Moody was properly distracted by making him dance every dance. The wedding cake had been spared from any mishaps, thanks to the abiding eye of Jerry Barnyard, who agreed to watch the cake. Bash’s best man had speech left everyone positively giddy with laughter at Gilbert’s expense. Everyone agreed that Gilbert’s blush when Bash described a certain letter from a certain redhead on a ship headed toward Trinidad was a sight to remember. 

Cole watched Gilbert offering Marilla his hand when a slow waltz came on, and noted how his head bended so that Marilla could speak to him quietly. He wondered if she was speaking of John Blythe because Gilbert’s eyes had become glassy and serious, his throat clenching with effort.

Later on, when Anne and Diana were waltzing together, a little too giddily, just missing Reverend Allen in their warpath, giggling as they did during Summer Soirees of old, Cole had found a quiet moment with Gilbert to hand him a final wedding present. Gilbert was already protesting “Mackenzie, you’ve done so much for Anne-girl just by coming here, you shouldn’t have…” but he fell silent as he unwrapped Cole’s gift. It was that fateful picture of Anne that Gilbert had seen in Cole’s studio, tiny and uncomplicated as far as a Cole Mackenzie artwork went, but as Gilbert knew as well as Cole did, a very fine rendition of its subject. For a time, Gilbert looked at Cole’s gift before clasping Cole in a tight hug. Cole smiled in Gilbert’s shoulder.

Later on, when twilight bloomed, and Anne and Gilbert were saying their farewells to the wedding guests, Anne ran to embrace Cole one last time. Her veil had been discarded, but Cole’s wreath remained, a little lopsided. Her cheek was damp.

“I’m so happy, Cole” was all she said. “I know.” he said.

“I want you to be happy too” she said. After a pause, Cole replied, a little shakily, “I’ll try.”

She was whispering in his ear now. “I’ve never met him, but I think he could make you happy. At least, I think he made you happy sometimes.”

“I was.” Cole gulped. “He did. He does.” he whispered back, and felt something like lightness, and he realized that this was the first time he had said this thought aloud. They hugged each other tighter.

“Promise me that you’ll visit us at Four Winds” said Anne, “Promise me that it will happen soon.” Cole promised, and found that, for the first time in a long time he intended to keep the promise. Four Winds was told to be a lovely. Excellent light in late summer. Cole wondered if Jonathan liked lighthouses.

He wondered what Anne would be like in ten years hence. He wondered what he where he would be. Would he still be here, watching a happy couple leave, forever alone? 

But now it was time to farewell his best and dearest friend.

“Goodbye, Anne-girl” He kissed her on her forehead. She sighed, and whispered into his shirt pocket “Goodbye Cole.”

And with that, Anne and Cole let go, and Cole watched her run to Gilbert, and clasp his outstretched hand, both readying to say goodbye to Diana and Marilla, who of course must be farewelled last of all.

 

* * *

  

Later, in his room, Cole turned on the gas lamp, opened his suitcase, and pulled a page from his sketchbook. In pencil, he began to sketch the day’s sights in miniature: Anne’s wreath, the little grave of Matthew Cuthbert, Bash’s grin, the baby, Anne Cordelia, dozing on her mother’s shoulder, Gilbert dancing with Marilla. Soon the page was filled. When he was finished, he sat for a moment, watching the flame of lamp cast shadows on the figures. He sighed a long sigh. He turned the paper to its blank side. He grabbed a pen and inked it. He began to write:

 

_Dear Jonathan,_

 

The End.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually my first foray into fan fiction! It took me forever to write, but I hoped you enjoyed it!


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